{"id":26878,"date":"2012-07-23T06:40:06","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T11:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=26878"},"modified":"2012-07-24T01:52:47","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T06:52:47","slug":"van-wert-native-has-connection-to-colo-shooting-victim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2012\/07\/23\/van-wert-native-has-connection-to-colo-shooting-victim\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor mentored Colo. shooting victim"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Van Wert native Natalie Taylor has the kind of job Colorado shooting victim Jessica Ghawi dreamed of. In fact, Ghawi told her so as Taylor, a sports broadcaster for the Columbus Blue Jackets, was leaving the Pepsi Center, home of the Avalanche NHL hockey team, to catch a plane to the next Blue Jackets game.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I was walking out of the Pepsi Center to board the team bus to head to the team plane, a young girl asked if she could talk with me,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cShe was clearly waiting to meet me because, she later explained, I\u2019m one of the only female broadcasters in the NHL and that\u2019s exactly what she wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor, daughter of Don and Deb Taylor of Van Wert, said Ghawi asked for her contact information and said she wanted to stay in touch so she could ask questions about Taylor\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

The Van Wert native said she was impressed by the young woman\u2019s desire for a sports broadcasting job.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could tell how passionate Jessica was about her future,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cNot only did she approach me on her own, which speaks volumes because I was surrounded by players at the time, but that didn\u2019t even faze her. She was just excited about sharing her career goals with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearing Ghawi\u2019s excitement about sports broadcasting also caused Taylor to reflect on her own career. \u201cWalking away from her, I definitely had one of those moments where I\u2019m reminded of how blessed I am to have the job I do, because her enthusiasm about being a sports reporter was contagious,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long before Taylor heard from Ghawi, who also used the professional name of Jessica Redfield during her budding career as a sports blogger and broadcast intern.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike she said, I received an email from her a few weeks after our chance meeting,\u201d Taylor explained, noting that the two women exchanged emails throughout the summer, with the Van Wert native responding to Ghawi\u2019s last email last Tuesday — just two days before her life was ended, reportedly by shooter James Holmes, in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater complex.<\/p>\n

Taylor, a 2000 graduate of Van Wert High School who has been a sports broadcaster since her graduation from Bowling Green State University eight years ago, has covered everything from Southeastern Conference football and basketball for Fox Sports South, to NASCAR with HDNet and, before her job with the Blue Jackets, high school sports and the Ohio State Buckeyes for WSYX\/WTTE television stations in Columbus. She said she tried to pass on the lessons she had learned during her sports career to Ghawi.<\/p>\n

Taylor said that, in Ghawi\u2019s last email, she asked about the difficulties of being a female in a male-dominated world, and how to handle certain situations.<\/p>\n

\u201cA portion of my email back to her was as follows: \u2018be patient, work hard and stay focused \u2026 it does get better,\u2019\u201d Taylor said. \u201cI never got the chance to hear back, but I hope that, in some small way, I reminded Jessica that she could accomplish anything despite the struggles she may encounter in this career field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the Van Wert native said, it was Ghawi\u2019s death that reacquainted her with some of life\u2019s tough lessons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the one who was reminded of the bigger lessons in life: it\u2019s very fragile, to be thankful for each moment we have and embrace our life to the fullest,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n

While she said it is a tragedy that Ghawi didn\u2019t get to realize her dream of being an NHL broadcaster, Taylor said she, personally, is a better person for having known the young woman who died on Thursday, and has emailed Ghawi\u2019s brother to share her thoughts of his sister with him and the rest of her family.<\/p>\n

\u201cJessica was a very driven, enthusiastic, passionate young lady who wanted so much from life,\u201d the Blue Jackets broadcaster said. \u201cI had a chance meeting with an aspiring journalist and she thought I was helping her, but it turns out she helped me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor said the tragedy also point out the impact of such acts on all of us. \u201cWhile it may have occurred in a different part of the country, it shows a tragedy like this really does impact people all around the country \u2026 including Van Wert,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor Van Wert native Natalie Taylor has the kind of job Colorado shooting victim Jessica Ghawi dreamed of. In fact, Ghawi told her so as Taylor, a sports broadcaster for the Columbus Blue Jackets, was leaving the Pepsi Center, home of the Avalanche NHL hockey team, to catch a plane to the next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-27 08:44:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}